


Sleeping Arrangements

by Ydnam



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:01:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ydnam/pseuds/Ydnam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened after Belle told Rumple in the shop that she had to stay with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in mid-October. Set immediately post 2x01 "Broken"
> 
> This is the first OUaT/Rumbelle thing I wrote.

He stared at her hand on his shoulder, uncomprehending, for a long moment. What did she mean by that? He was admitting to being a monster and letting her go again even though losing her once had come nearer to destroying him than anything had since he’d let go of Bae’s hand. So why in all the worlds did that mean she had to stay?

“I don’t understand,” he said quietly.

“I know,” Belle answered, her smile dimming slightly as she withdrew her hands. “But you will. I intend to make sure of it.”

“I’m sure you do,” he murmured. 

“I do,” she said firmly. “But first I intend to sleep. In a real bed.”

There was a part of him that longed to say something about better uses for real beds. But his mouth had gotten ahead of him already once this night and he had no right to even think such things. “I have a spare bedroom,” he offered hesitantly. “It’s seen little enough use and you’re welcome to it.”

“And if I don’t want it?”

A few moments ago he had steeled himself and told her to leave. Told her to go, again, though it had been harder than he would ever admit. So why did it hurt now when she implied she wasn’t willing to stay in the same house with him? “Then I will find something more suited to your tastes. There are houses. Rooms at Granny’s. I’ll arrange for it. Whatever you wish.” 

“Whatever I wish?” Belle asked. “Truly?”

“Truly.” As if he could deny her something so simple. And it was better this way. If he repeated that often enough he would believe it eventually. He had convinced himself of more difficult things in the past.

“Then take me home to a room that isn’t empty.” She reached out and took his hand. “I don’t want to be alone again. Not yet.” Recriminations, if there were to be any more, could wait until the morning.

*

She’d fallen asleep on his couch. He’d made tea for the both of them but she’d only lasted a few moments before her head began to nod. He found a blanket to cover her, cursing his leg for rendering him unable to carry her to the proper bed she’d asked to spend the night in. 

He took off his tie and jacket and settled into a chair opposite her. He couldn’t carry her to the bed and he didn’t trust the magic here enough to try an alternate route. But he could make sure the room wasn’t empty. He could do that much with no fear of ruining things. 

While she slept, he planned. Plotted, really. If the curse was broken, and it seemed it truly was, then he could leave. He could find his boy. Belle was a complication. Not an unwelcome one. Never that. Her being here now meant he had to alter things. He had never planned on a companion on this journey but if she was as determined to stay with him as she’d seemed at the shop then things would need to be different. 

She slept soundly through the night, somehow. He dozed but woke with a start with every noise his house or the woman in it made. He’d given up on sleep entirely when the sky started to lighten. He was writing, furiously scribbling on a yellow legal pad, when she awoke. A list of items he might need from his shop. Another list of more mundane items from the eternally sneezing dwarf’s store. He should be able to gather everything today and they could leave. Assuming, of course, she would agree to come with him. The lists were easy. Getting the items on them was easy. Asking her, telling her why, that would be the difficult part.

“Were you there all night?” she asked.

He nodded without looking up. 

“Thank you.”

“It was nothing. Tonight,” he said, standing and trying to hide his grimace as his leg protested the movement, “you’ll have your real bed.”

“And you’ll stay there too.” It wasn’t a question. “You know,” Belle continued, smiling up at him, “monsters don’t watch over their damsels while they slumber.”

“Ah, but dragons,” Rumplestiltskin countered, “guard their treasures jealously.” He was pathetically grateful for the change in subject. Discussions of sleeping arrangements would necessitate conversations he was too cowardly to have before breakfast. But perhaps jealous guarding was not the best thing to mention, he reflected, watching Belle’s smile turn into the look of such heartbreaking disappointment that she’d worn last night. “Breakfast?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More missing scenes. This time for 2x02 "We Are Both"

Rumplestiltskin had long found smashing things to be somewhat cathartic. There was something of a release to be found in destruction. Unfortunately, shattering display cases had not helped his state of mind nearly as much as he might have hoped. He still wasn’t calm, not entirely, even after he’d carefully swept up the glass shards from the shop floor. He was, at the very least, together enough to drive home. 

The trunk for Belle was carefully stowed in the back of the car. The smaller case sat on the passenger seat where he could keep an eye on it. He needed to keep it safe, all of it, until he figured out a way out of this wretched town. And what had Regina done to his curse to make the barrier spell change so? He had designed the bloody thing so he could leave once it was broken. That had been the entire point. He had spent his considerable lifetime trying to fix the worst mistake he’d ever made. Everything had built towards this moment and yet he was still trapped.

He was distracted still. Not as under control as he’d thought or hoped and somehow he found himself pulling off to the side of the road where the boundary lay. He’d meant to pull into his driveway. He’d meant to go home to Belle. He should have been walking to his front door, not standing in the middle of the road staring at the still unreachable rest of the world. 

It was such a simple thing. A line of garish color inexpertly sprayed across the asphalt. Such a simple thing to be causing so much anguish. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there. Too long, judging by the shadows spreading across the road. And he’d said he’d be back as soon he could. He tore his gaze away from the offending stripe and turned back towards the car and there was nobody there to hear his whispered apology to the son who would remain lost at least one day more.

 

**

The house was dark when he pulled up and his heart dropped. He wanted to run to the door but running was not a thing easy for Mr. Gold and if he tried the case he held would surely overbalance him and its contents were too valuable to risk dropping it. He fumbled with the doorknob and his keys and his cane, his hand shaking as he finally opened the door and stepped over the threshold.

“Belle?” His voice shook as surely as his hands did. Had something happened? Had she left the house? Had someone come here?

“In here.” He followed her voice and found her on the couch on which she’d spent the night. He let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding and set the case down heavily on a chair. 

“I was worried,” Belle said. “When it got dark and you weren’t here.” Whether she meant worried for him or for what he might have done was unclear even to her.

“I meant to be here earlier,” he started, then shook his head and turned to switch on the light. What he’d meant to do didn’t matter. The intent behind the actions never mattered so much as the actions themselves. He’d said that to others often enough. “The closed sign on the door is no longer an effective deterrent,” he continued. “That led to some, ah, unexpected complications. And a bit of broken glass.” Carefully chosen words, as always. The shepherd prince had unwittingly saved him from making a terrible mistake for all that his visit had been unwelcome. Or perhaps it hadn’t been entirely unwittingly on young Charming’s part. The lad did have a disturbing tendency to look out for others without even seeming to.

“Unexpected complications,” Belle echoed. “And broken glass. Was anyone hurt?”

The accusation was there and didn’t need to be spoken. He deserved that. He knew he did. Much as he wanted her to trust him it was better that she didn’t. “Only my display cases, dearest. Only a bit of glass.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure. There was no one there at the time.” He paused before adding, “I waited.”

She’d seen the after effects of one of his destructive rages in another lifetime and shuddered to think what might happen to a body caught up in such a thing. “Of course you did.” Another mystery to be uncovered. Another layer to her Rumplestiltskin. Did he worry he would hurt someone or did he just want to be sure there were no witnesses when he lost control? “What made you so angry?”

“We can’t leave.” He spat the words out angrily. “None of us. One of the dwarves, Snow White’s dwarves, tried. He can’t remember a thing. Again. We’re trapped.”

“A dwarf?” 

Why did she sound so worried about the dwarf? What business had his Belle ever had with dwarves? “A pharmacist at the moment. He doesn’t remember being a dwarf. Again. As if the curse never broke for him.” 

“And that happens to anyone who tries to leave?”

He was terrified, suddenly, that she would try to do the brave and reckless thing and test the theory. “No-one else is going to try,” he said fiercely. “Not until I’ve had time to work it out.”

“I’m not going to try,” she said soothingly. “I wouldn’t risk forgetting myself again.”

Belle had been able to read his face in other world when it had barely been a human one. That she would be able to see his thoughts so clearly here ought not to have surprised Rumplestiltskin but he rather thought he would be surprised by Belle until the end of his days.

“Of course not,” he replied. Now would be, he thought, a good time to tell her more. To tell her why this new aspect of the curse was so upsetting and why he needed to fix it. But he couldn’t face that. He couldn’t face the hatred he feared would come from her knowing the truth about the things he’d done. He couldn’t face the disappointment he was sure to see on her face. So he turned to other, safer topics before his tongue could get the better of his cowardice. “Have you eaten?”

**

She had asked for a real bed and a real bed she would have. There were fresh sheets in the guest room (though the last set had never been slept in), towels set out, a nightgown liberated from the shop, anything she might need. Or so he thought.

He showed her to her room which had become hers in his mind as soon as he’d offered it to her and would remain so forever. He bid her goodnight and turned to go.

“I still don’t want to be alone,” Belle said softly. “You left me alone all day and I’ve had a lifetime of alone already. Stay?”

He looked at her helplessly. He wasn’t supposed to scare away the things that lurked in the night. He was supposed to be the creature that children feared coming to find them in the dark. “I…that is, you don’t, we don’t…”

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” she said gently. And where was the monster now? Monsters did not stammer so when they didn’t know what to say. “Just stay. That’s all. Please?” Though gods knew the both of them wanted more it wasn’t time. There would be time for everything. That’s what he’d told her at the well and she had to believe it. 

He nodded, defeated by her quiet plea and those eyes he had thought until yesterday never to see again. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.” He was giving her every opportunity to change her mind and she was giving him exasperated looks. “If I may change into something more suitable for sleep?” He turned again without waiting for an answer and headed for his room and a set of black pajamas. 

When he returned she was already under the covers, curled up and gazing out the window. She looked up when he entered and smiled approvingly. “Oh, those suit you almost as well as your, ah, suits.”

He returned the smile rather half-heartedly and tried to settle himself onto the bed without disturbing her or indeed even touching her. Belle had other ideas, as she always had. She somehow managed to bring herself close enough, without his noticing her movement, that her back would have been touching him had he been beneath the covers with her. That was how she fell asleep, curled against him while he lay there tense and wide-awake. When her breathing had slowed to an even rhythm he swung his legs over the side of the bed to leave only to freeze when she turned over and reached for him.

“I asked you to stay,” she murmured. “So stay.”

So he reached for the blanket folded at the foot of the bed and pulled it over himself as he lay back down. She made a contented noise and turned back over to face the window. “I’ll be right here, then.” 

He woke first to find that he had shifted in the night to curl his body around hers. His first thought was to bolt from the bed, from the room, perhaps from the house. But that might have woken her and he was loathe to do that when she looked so peaceful. How she could look so peaceful sleeping snuggled up against him was a mystery. How they had ended up in this position was another. Mr. Gold certainly never, what was the word, spooned anyone. The term was too ridiculous for that man to even consider and he’d hardly had the sort of companionship that would encourage such behavior. Rumplestiltskin, as Belle had known him, would certainly never have cuddled. Neither of the men he had been would be lying here beside this woman like this. But perhaps the man who was both men could learn to do so.


End file.
